2 Answers
2

You can use Inkscape, which is a free, open source and cross-platform vector graphics application. It will allow you to import the PDF files and select embedded vectors. You can then edit them and process as you like.

While Inkscape is an awesome way to do it, for those lacking X11, you can also extract individual pages of a PDF into SVG format using the poppler-utils at the command line. For example, to extract just page 30:

$ pdftocairo -f 30 -l 30 -svg somehugemanual.pdf myextractedpage.svg

You can then use your favorite vector editor (mine is Inkscape) to isolate the image from the text.

Alternately, if you're a hardcore command-line user, you can extract to EPS (encapsulated postscript) and use sed to hide all the text (which happens to be between BT and ET lines for pdftocairo). Here's how: